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Facebook Exec Explains Why Technical Skills Aren't Enough To Be a Great Engineer (geekwire.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Facebook's Regina Wallace-Jones, who is in charge of protecting 1.6 billion people on the social network, says math and science skills aren't enough to tackle challenges at a firm. "Don't let anyone tell you that engineering is only about math and science or that engineering expertise is all you have to offer the world. Your experiences and your perspectives can help inspire a company to find a different approach to a problem or encourage someone else to speak up," she said. "The impact of engineers goes well beyond the mobile apps, the gadgets, and the security systems that we build. The quest to engineer meaningful solutions... is not just about math and science, it's about making amazing solutions for real people in the real world. It's about pushing mankind to its outer limits by inspiring the world to imagine bigger solutions than our hands can hold."
Nothing is ever enough for these corporations while there are still dollars in circulation that don't belong to them. Facebook is about making amazing solutions to fill Mark Zuckerberg's pocket, nothing more, nothing less. "Real people in the real world" my bollox
H1b and the will to work 80 hours a week is what they really want.
And that's why she earns the big bucks. Because she's the one with this insightful knowledge which no one ever though about before.
... would Facebook know about "real solutions for real people"? It's a frickin' social network, fer Chrissake! What exactly do they produce? What particular problems do they address? How is mankind's lot significantly improved by the presence of Facebook?
Signed,
an engineer
licet differant, aequabitur
Facebook's Regina Wallace-Jones, who is in charge of protecting 1.6 billion people on the social network
Who's in charge of protecting 1.6 billion people from the social network?
This... coming from Facebook... is just about the funniest thing I've seen in several days.
"meaningful"
Ah ha.
Ha ha ha ha. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
"The impact of engineers goes well beyond the mobile apps, the gadgets, and the security systems that we build. The quest to engineer meaningful solutions... is not just about math and science, it's about making amazing solutions for real people in the real world"
Regina, this is not news. Any software engineer worth their salt (i.e. with a natural aptitude for computer and software engineering and science) knows this. The whole problem with our industry is that management has seen fit to offer jobs to just about anyone who wants to "work with computers". Worse, they employ the ones who *don't* even like the work ... they just want the money (they've heard there's good money in IT), but actually detest the work ... you'll never get inspirational work out of them.
Could it be that you're one of those managers who think they have a monopoly on intelligence and insight ? Some of us have known what you've just said for a decade or two, but management didn't want to listen, because "the numbers". Now that your numbers are looking good, some of you are stumbling on our prior art as if it's new and deep wisdom.
If you don't pray in my school, I won't think in your church.
Nobody ever said "engineering is only about math and science". I've never seen it written or heard somebody ever even imply that, nor do engineering curriculums limit themselves in such a way. Reading between the lines it would seem that one person feels inadequate around people with significantly superior "math and science" knowledge and feels the need to justify their self image (and position) by implying that other people are somehow incomplete or defective.
Engineering *is* all about math and science. Software developers are not engineers. Devs are artists with strong sub-calculus math skills with a knack for flawlessly drawing within the lines while imagining a result far beyond them. We're artists first.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Honesty to others, and especially honesty to self. An engineer has to be a realist in a world of wishful thinkers. He's got to work well with others, but be able to stand up to them as well. He also ought to be bold, but conscientious; sometimes taking risks but never unnecessary or sloppy ones.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Maybe they should hire more Medieval History majors. That worked out so well for HP.
Here's the quote that you're referring to
"Don’t let anyone tell you that engineering is only about math and science or that engineering expertise is all you have to offer the world. Your experiences and your perspectives can help inspire a company to find a different approach to a problem or encourage someone else to speak up."
The headline is a bit inflammatory, the actual quote is about how engineers should have *more* say about how things are done.
At no point did she say that maths and science aren't important.
So maybe pause for 5 seconds before you hate on everything.
It's turtles all the way down.
Precisely. This "you need more than technical ability, you need soft skills" stuff is just one in a long line of things to keep good technical people "in their place". No one ever tell a salesperson that to advance in sales, they'll need to learn to build the product. Nor does a marketing person get told they'll need to service it to advance in marketing. But engineering? Sorry, if you can't do absolutely everything, technical and "soft", you're just a low-level drone. As you say, if I could do everything, I'd found my own damn company.
I went and found this:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/mean...
I am, by no means, an authority on the subject. I didn't even read all of the page. It just seems to be the better of the few - others listed it and had some usage. That one gets into where it comes from - or where they claim it comes from. Buggered if I know, buggered if I am an authority.
It's up to you, I suppose, as to what you believe. Horses do things like take you home when you're drunk. I figured it came from there and things like that - things learned in experience. I'd never heard it used as a pejorative. My linguistic capacity is mere grunts and occasional pointing. Any of my utterances making sense is entirely incidental and orthogonal to intent. You'd probably get better etymology information from a trained monkey than you will from me.
But, that's how I understand it and how I've seen it used. The validity of that use is subject to debate, a debate for which I am unqualified, and I can only share how I've witnessed the usage and interpreted said usage. ;-)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Have you ever used ReactJS? That's being developed by Facebook in the majority.
Then there's a lot of graph theory being applied to your network connections to determine who are you likely to know. A lot of analysis of your browsing habits on FB (and off it, admittedly) to determine what ads you are likely to click on and what pages/communities you may be interested in.
Like it or not, Facebook is doing a LOT of research to keep itself relevant, both in engineering and in the minds of people.
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
I don't even use Facebook but it's easy to admire their engineering.
To be fair, it's about all I do admire.
But scaling a website to a billion users a day, 8 billion video views a day, however hundreds of billions of ads served per day - and bear in mind they calculate which ad to serve to each user.
That's some pretty solid engineering.